met this christian man, friend of my friend, at this cookout my friend was hosting, and I can’t totally remember how but him and I started talking about religion. he (my friends friend) told me how he was a devout christian and he was talking to me about his faith. i was just listening and trying to make small talk, until he asked me if I was religious. im not, and I told him I was atheist. you could see his face go pale. he asked “you don’t believe in god? how?“ in response I told him how all this scientific evidence keeps on supporting the theory of evolution, and how I just personally don’t think theres a high power. he listened for a second then interrupted me, saying “evolutions not proven, its just a theory so I’m not gonna believe in some made up tale about us being monkeys”. he went on to say he has hope that evolution will be debunked and everyone will believe in god. the irony of this man! evolution and science have evidence and reasoning religion has none! I couldn’t believe the ignorance coming out of his mouth, it’s crazy and Im still amazed at how people are this opposed to logic and reasoning.

ps, sorry about grammar I’m on my phone and it’s not working well :(

The West still clings to a “Christian heritage” self-image that no longer fits a modern secular state. That’s the core problem.
As long as the state and the culture define themselves as culturally Christian, you can’t apply the same standard to Islam without immediately being called a racist or an Islamophobe. Christianity is framed as “ours,” Islam as the outsider faith. Then every criticism of parallel societies, honor culture, gender roles, or legal dualism gets recoded as bigotry against a minority.
In a consistently atheist / secular state that argument collapses. Religion is a private hobby — for everyone. No special privileges, no state-backed holidays as moral authority, no faith-based exemptions from the law, no “but this is a Christian country” exception. If you’re going to restrict religion in public life, restrict all of them equally. The cleanest version: keep belief private and keep revelation out of legislation, education, and public policy. Pray at home if you want. Do not treat a 7th- or 1st-century text as a source of public morality.
What I find genuinely wild is letting people vote whose entire moral framework comes from a 2,000-year-old book. Written in a world where women had almost no rights, slavery was normal, and the baseline ethics were brutal by modern standards. A lot of believers don’t do “good” because they independently concluded it was right. They do it because the fantasy novel promises heaven or threatens hell. That’s not adult ethics. That’s carrot-and-stick for children.
If your politics, your view of women, your idea of justice, or your willingness to accept harm is primarily derived from scripture, you should not have the same political weight as someone whose values are grounded in evidence, secular law, and present-day human standards.
Yes, Christianity shaped parts of Western history. That does not make it a governing philosophy for 2026. Either the West becomes actually secular — religion has no claim on public order — or demographics and fertility will eventually settle the question without a debate.
This isn’t “hate the believers.” It’s the observation that revealed religion and liberal modernity are not stable long-term roommates. Pretending otherwise just delays the collision.

Man, can you imagine living your life in blind dedication to an “all knowing, all powerful” God only to have him drop a sign on your head when you are worshipping him at a religious festival?

I hate to say it, but this “God” being sounds like a real jerk.

Genuinely I can’t understand the idea that I should be respectful to religious people because it’s their choice. Yes, they choose to live their lives in these ways and choose to believe in this bs

And this idea of there being some sort of “moderates” within any religion is laughable. So it’s okay to believe in this stuff as long as you don’t do it?

It’s okay to think women shouldn’t have rights as long as you don’t say it out loud? Or to think that marrying a child is okay as long as you don’t actually do it? Or hating gays and not actually acting upon your hatred for them?

The only line drawn for these people are the laws that society’s follow, if it wasn’t for that all of these people do these things not just think them.

Today is my first birthday since I told my family 3 months ago that I left religion since they aren’t very religious they were just mad at me and didn’t physically hurt me. However they’ve been giving me the silent treatment for the past few months
I really didn’t think they’d surprise me for my birthday, but the surprise was that literally all the gifts were religious
I got 5 gifts: an abaya, a Quran, a dua book, and a prayer mat. My little sister was the only one who got me a normal gift a computer mouse
I honestly felt so disrespected it’s a very clear message that they don’t respect my decision at all

Ever since I was younger, like as early as 11. I have never understood why people believe in most modern religions.

It simply just doesn't make sense, like how can there be some magical being constantly watching over humans every move?

And if you do something that magical being doesn't like? Well, apparently you are going to BURN for ETERNITY?

Like, how can you even prove this? Through a ancient book? Something that we don't even know who originally wrote it?

If that doesn't sound ridiculous, and possibly a bit crazy, then I don't know what does.

I also feel like many people only believe in religion to cope with reality. As this is definitely a well known phenomenon, that people will turn to things that give them purpose, that make them feel better when in distressed states. (Especially)

And in that case, it's religion.

I feel like religon prevents people from living the peace they claim religion gives us.

For example: Religious people constantly fighting other religious people for subjective beliefs, some religious people using religion to justify bigotry and hatred, higher ups using religion to control certain populations and discriminate... etcetera..

It's so ridiculous..

I was raised in a house of full-on believers, so until I was nine, when I read a subdued version of Greek mythology, God was a given. Afterwards, I couldn't understand how all these great Greek gods could exist without even a mention of Jesus and his almighty father. How could these gods not know or obey God?

When I was 14, during the Easter holiday at my grandparents' house, I picked up the Bible and read it from cover to cover. I always loved reading, and it was basically the only book in the house, even though no one had read it before me. I loved Jesus, but the Old Testament raised so many questions.Two years later, I read it again from cover to cover. That's when I realized that everything religious, even ancient Greek mythology, was just fiction. How could they have existed at the same time? How could this God, who calls himself almighty, only reveal himself and talk to a handful of people? That did not make any sense. How can one call oneself almighty and just talk to one MAN (not woman) every couple hundreds of years? Why not talk to all of us?

I realize now that this was strong evidence of my critical thinking, and I firmly believe to this day that if you have critical thinking skills and read the Bible, you will stop believing.

Speaking of hair…. and gender based social roles.
This is for entertainment purposes only, seems that all this person is doing is complaining about how he’s single to me.

Growing up religious, Christian, i did not understand how it was so easy to convince people to believe in a silent invisible god, a god that never gave a sign of his/they's existence such as responding prayers from the sky with a loud echoed voice